Perspective

CNN is headlining a story today, “Report: 1 in 50 American children homeless”

Not only is this scary, and seemingly impossible (especially as I sit here enjoying a good breakfast, a warm home and contemplating which outfit I should wear today); this story has a relevance to my life that I would have never expected.

As many of you know we are taking a team of 16 girls to Romania this summer as part of the GreenHouse Globetrotters program. One of the girls on this team (a beautiful 16 year old) shocked me when she arrived to her scholarship interview in a taxi. Since then she has slowly shared more and more about the experiences of her past... Talk about humbling; talk about scary!

Can you imagine spending two years in middle school searching for a place to sleep at night?

Can you imagine how lonely it would be to have a biological father with bipolar disorder, an incarcerated drug dealer for a stepfather and a mother who works the streets as a prostitute strung out on cocaine???

Can you imagine being dropped off at middle school with a teacher who works at your school because he secretly buys drugs from your stepfather and, in exchange for a deal, let’s your stepfather use his car during school hours?

Can you imagine how hard it would be to study in a dimly lit room of a motel (a motel that is so disgusting it should be condemned) while strangers smoke illegal substances out of used aluminum cans they’ve found in a garbage bin nearby?

Did I mention all of this took place only a couple miles from where I live??? A beautiful, intelligent and dream-filled high school girl... She is everything we were at that age, yet she has battled for existence in ways we never imagined possible.

Her story breaks my heart. At the same time, I am grateful to have such a resilient and determined new friend. There is so much she can teach us.